His family noticed the personality change first. Over several months, a 21-year-old man became irritable, swung between moods, pulled away from people, and watched his academic performance fall apart. The behavior was different enough from his baseline that he was initially steered toward psychiatric care.
Then his hands started shaking, worse during writing and eating, and his speech grew slightly difficult. Liver tests came back abnormal. And when he finally got a brain MRI, the midbrain showed the outline of a panda's face.
